A member of the Kurdish forces stands next to an armoured vehicle destroyed by an improvised explosive device placed by Islamic State militants that killed several Peshmerga fighters when they pushed towards Sinjar Mountain. Source: AP

The two-day blitz into the Sinjar region involved 8,000 Peshmerga fighters and some of the heaviest air strikes since a US-led coalition started an air campaign four months ago.

Masrour Barzani, who is the son of the Kurdish president and the intelligence chief for the autonomous region, said the Peshmerga advance had broken the siege on Mount Sinjar.

“Peshmerga forces have reached Mount Sinjar, the siege on the mountain has been lifted,” he told reporters from an operations centre near the border with Syria.

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The Peshmerga said they recaptured eight villages on the way and killed about 80 IS fighters in the initial phase of the offensive launched from Rabia on the Syria border and Zumar on the shores of Mosul dam lake.

They also lost seven men on Wednesday in Qasreej village when they failed to stop a suicide attacker who rammed an explosives-laden armoured vehicle into their convoy, officers told AFP on the scene.

“This operation represents the single biggest military offensive against IS and the most successful,” a statement from Barzani’s office said.

A devastating IS attack on the Yazidi minority’s Sinjar heartland in August displaced tens of thousands of people and was one of the reasons put forward by US President Barack Obama for launching a campaign of air strikes in September.

Amid fears of a genocide against the small Kurdish-speaking minority, tens of thousands of Yazidis fled to the mountain and remained trapped there in the searing summer heat with no supplies.

Kurdish fighters, mostly Syrian, broke that first siege but remaining anti-IS forces were subsequently unable to hold positions in the plains and retreated back to the mountain in late September.

The Peshmerga commander for the area said troops had reached the mountain and secured a road that would enable people to leave, effectively breaking the siege. Several thousand are still thought to be trapped there.

“Tomorrow most of the people will come down from the mountain,” Mohamed Kojar said by phone, explaining the offensive had secured a corridor northeast of the mountain.

A Yazidi leader atop the mountain however said he could see no sign of a military deployment. A Peshmerga commander explained that any evacuation would only begin on Friday.

Kurdish officials said the operation had dealt the jihadists a blow by cutting their supply lines and forcing them retreat tourban bastions such as Tall Afar and Mosul, their main hub.

Jihadists still control of the town of Sinjar, on the southern side of the mountain and many of the surrounding villages.

The Peshmerga have said that the aim of the operation launched on Wednesday was to liberate the entire Sinjar area.